Posted by Ueli (195.162.167.253) on July 05, 2000 at 21:19:05:
In Reply to: Alcohol Question posted by Miguel on July 05, 2000 at 15:30:25:
I think for most it's just the plain alcohol (ethanol) that is triggering an attack, and it's acting really fast.
But for some clusterheads the type of beverage might be important. I know of a fellow living in the south of Switzerland for whom one of the local red wines is an instant trigger, but from the other local sort he can drink unlimited amounts.
And then there is a third group (possibly with yours truly as the only member) where alcohol interacts with other food ingested to precipitate an attack. I can drink any alcoholic beverage in amounts that makes me rather tipsy without being triggered. However, if I eat cheese (or any other dairy product) within +/- 2 hours of drinking, I'll get an attack, and it is markedly different from the 'spontaneous' attacks: very long raise time of about 30 min (against 2-3 min), a 2-3 hours duration (defined as above 80% of peak) (against 15-20 min) and a slow 30 min trailing off (against seconds). These numbers applied before I used oxygen. Now i can abort both kinds of attacks with 5-10 min of O2, but the alcohol/cheese attacks re-surface again after 20-30 min and I have to go back to the oxygen several times, until the chemical reaction in my intestines ceases when one of the reactants is depleted enough.